Light in the Attic releasing sick 2CD/3LP box set of private press new age music spanning 1950-1990

Light in the Attic Records releases a lot of magical, forgotten reissues. It’s easy to imagine a herd of well-coiffed Lisa Frank unicorns answering the phone there, sorting out rights to obscure 7-inch releases, and laughing at memes on the Unicorn Internet while Witch Interns get them fancy lattes. And maybe now that’s not so far from the truth, because Light in the Attic is boldly daring to go where very few super-cool indie labels have really ever gone before: giving props to New Age music.

This ain’t your mom’s Yanni Best Of or one of those ocean waves CDs you can get from Target and preview on a display. This has organs and drones and weird experimental shit, ladies and gentlewarlocks: welcome to I Am the Center: Private Issue New Age Music in America 1950-1990. The 2CD or 3LP release showcases analog, handmade, weirdo recordings that wouldn’t be out of place at an experimental music festival in some cool Eastern European city (KRAKOW *cough cough*, you know you’re cool). Plus a lot of the tracks have awesome/ridiculous names like “The Struggle of the Magicians part three,” or “Witch’s Will,” or my new life theme song from Brian Eno/Blues Control collaborator Laraaji, “Unicorns in Paradise.” Fun fact: one of the tracks on here, Gail Laughton’s “Pompeii 76 AD” was on the Blade Runner soundtrack. I Am the Center is available on October 29.

I Am the Center: Private Issue New Age Music in America 1950-1990 tracklisting:

Following the path blazed by the indomitable Darius Rucker of Hootie & the Blowfish fame, earlier this month Richard Youngs announced he would be releasing his first country album, entitled Summer through My Mind. Many prominent voices in the imaginary blogosphere in my head wondered if this might indicate a permanent shift in Youngs’ approach before going on to encourage me to engage in risky behavior and steal things from my roommates.

Well, prominent voices, now you have your answer! Youngs has announced yet another full-length LP for 2013 (apparently he wants to release as much music as possible before he becomes Richard Olds). Regions of the Old School is a double LP out from MIE, and it steps back from the pastoral descriptions of God, country, and pickup trucks of Youngs’ brief “country phase.” Instead, it offers five sprawling songs with an ambitious array of instrumentation, from hand drums and gongs to the shakuhachi flute and synthesizer contributions from Neil Campbell. Out October 15 in the US and September 23 in the rest of the world, the album arrives in a limited run of 500 gatefold LPs with artwork by Madeleine Hynes (who also contributes guest vocals to the album). The album is distributed in the United States by Revolver USA and around the world by Morr Music.

Youngs is also touring North America starting in September. Though I continue to refuse to believe that calendars are a “real thing,” I’ve posted the dates below anyway, just for a laugh. I mean, what the hell, right? It’s the internet!

For years, vinyl purists have used the cracks and pops of old records as an argument for the format’s superiority. “I just like the atmosphere,” one might say, while scraping a nail to the side of an old Bing Crosby album. At one point, a lover of vinyl found a monkey paw and wished for even more hisses, pops, crackles, and static. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you see things, this was a bargain-price monkey paw, so all it did was put an idea into Aidan Moffat’s head. That idea was for the former Arab Strap frontman and current L. Pierre to put out a new EP consisting almost entirely of vinyl hisses, scratches, and pops. As such, he’s doing exactly that.

On September 20, Moffat will put out a new L. Pierre EP called Surface Noise through Melodic (following up The Island Come True, one of our favorite albums (so far) this year). As directed by the light nudges of the monkey’s paw, Surface Noise will contain just that, surface noise. Though not completely comprised of the noise of record wear, those sounds are the primary element of the recordings. Moffat intends for the EP to be ” an affectionate tribute to the wear and tear of overplayed vinyl; the hiss, scratch and pop of records long loved but worn down.” Appropriately, Surface Noise will be available only on 10-inch format, so you can wonder for the rest of your life what pops came with the record and which came naturally with time. Great news: this record may drive you insane.

So when Mr P stormed into the office this morning carrying two Target bags full of molly and off-brand orange juice, he didn’t even need to say it, we all knew: DJ Rashad had just announced a full-length album on his home away from home, Hyperdub Records. Twenty minutes later I’m feelin hi af but for the readers I cut myself off to finish this story. The album’s called Double Cup, and like all his past releases it features a rotating cast of friends and associates: Spinn, Earl, and Manny (welcome back), plus SF-based Taso and young buck Addison Groove. “I Don’t Give a Fuck” is smack dab in the middle of the 14 tracks, but otherwise it’s all fresh material inspired by “Drank, Kush, Barz” and Rashad’s own rapidfire muse. Props to Hyperdub for providing the $$ without the “please water it down” caveat. Double Cup comes out October 22 on CD/2xLP/digital, and apparently moves from “low slung, g-funk flavor” into “jagged breakbeat science” without taking more than a couple breaths in between.

To celebrate, Rashad is teaming up with Hyperdub label head Kode9 and generally hyper labelmate Ikonika for a rare US/Canada (+ Mexico) tour; check the dates below, and check them carefully because the lineup varies depending on the city.

Shit, just saw P run into the bathroom, gotta go hold his hair back. Bye!

Nothing is real, baby, yeah! Can you feel me, baby? Strawberry fields and incense and peppermints and all that stuff! And Crystal Antlers! Psych rock to the max and all hail Ram Dass and Robert Anton Wilson and maybe even Alan Watts if he’s in cartoon form! Life is a whiff of burnt almonds, and those burnt-ass almonds are the smell of revolution; and that revolution is the EVOlution… of a new, leisurely-innovative record album, Nothing Is Real, chasing their last one like Alice and the white rabbit; and it’s all dropping like the drippiest of brown acid on the very trippy October 15 via L.A.’s most far-out Innovative Leisure label!

Like, can I just say that real-er than now and now-er than real cover art and new album trailer by famed surf/skate/graffiti guru C.R. Stecyk = glimpse of a whole new world of sound and vision from Crystal Antlers (which, by the way, has been reincarnated as an agile power trio of LIONS, featuring leader Jonny Bell, drummer Kevin Stuart and guitarist Andrew King), like whole universes budding from the fuzz of a blissy fucking dandelion? Can I? Because don’t look now, but I think I just did! Mindfreak! Yo, don’t actually freak, though. Keep calm and shine-on (as if you have any choice!). Isn’t that right, main-diamond Bell? Preach it:

[…] the new album finally felt balanced in it’s process, writing and recording. A big part of that was the fact that we had our own space for the first time ever (the studio I built at my house), and we were able to really stretch out. That enabled us to explore more pop ideas that would have probably previously been canned. We also were able to really focus on dynamics and having a very clear sonic feel to the record. We really strived to maintain the same spirit and energy that we had in the beginning, and that’s what ties everything we’ve done together.

Ugh, nevermind… I’m going to Cropped Out this year. They already announced their initial festival lineup in Louisville, KY and it stood me up straight — Bill Orcutt/Chris Corsano duo, Hair Police, Blues Control, Wolf Eyes, Endless Boogie, The Endtables, Steve Gunn, Shit and Shine, CAVE, Running, Thee Open Sex, Mayo Thompson performing Corky’s Debt to His Father — and now there are a handful of new additions that really stood me up straight (turns out I was slouching before). Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Matt Sweeney will be there on Saturday, performing their Superwolf album in full for the first time ever! Borbetomagus will be there on Saturday, performing their horn abuse for the millionth time ever!

And guess who’s serving as the Official Grand Marshall of Cropped Out on both Friday and Saturday? No, not that one guy who reads poetry about Wilco, even crazier! Tony Clifton. Yep, Andy Kaufman may have passed away in 1984, but he’s having one hell of a 2013. The “consummate performer and class act” Kaufman alter ego will be emceeing the whole fest, and “will undoubtedly win over the Cropped Out audience with his mixture of Vegas variety, songs, and classic family-friendly parlor humor.”

Tickets to Cropped Out 2013 can be purchased now, as a $40 Fri/Sat combo, or $25 individual passes. Instead of a punishingly stacked third day, there will be a nice one-act Sunday closing party with Lambchop. Go here and check out the full lineup on a pretty drawing.